Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Cubeleon

Hello bit-tech readers

For the past two years I've been working on my second casemod. The first one was a real casemod, this one is a caseconstruction. I realise those two years are a little much, but school and all others things make it go slow. I'm still planning to finish this one, because I really want to see the result

Until today I've just logged on 2 dutch forums, and for a little while I've been thinking about posting my log here. The hardest part is translating the 25 updates I've written before. I will be posting the most important pictures, so you guys can see what I've done, and what the plans are.

The name is a combination of "cube" and "chameleon". The chameleon part is because of the lighting. I'll post more information about that, when I've got something to show

They say all great mods start with a plan, so I planned It will become a cube of exactly 370x370x370mm, made out of aluminium square tubing and 2mm aluminium panels.

So I started with the tubing, some angle-iron and M4x10 hex bolts:







The inside of the case will be split in two by a divider plate, so more tubing:



Just a nice picture of the bolts



Besides aluminium I will also use a lot of AC-Ryan 5mm black plexi These parts will become the HDD-cages, there will be place for 4 pieces. At the moment I just have one hdd, so I think I'll have to buy some more

The harddisks will be mounted with these tiny pieces of aluminium:



Like so:





Some nice pieces of machinery, the whole cube fits underneath it, which can come in very handy



A few weeks ago this belt/discsander arrived



Some panels are made to fit (which takes a few hours per panel ). Almost every wall will exist of two aluminium plates. Between those two I will be able to do a lot of the cable routing.



I will use a backplate from an old case, that I've cut to size. One side is painted black, the other site will be polished. It still needs al little extra polish though





A long time ago I made these parts, that will be used for the power supply. These 6 connectors will be used for the molexes, sata power and 6-pin pci-e.



Some other parts will be used to run the cables through:



I wasn't really happy with the results, so I used the CNC mill at school. The results where terrible



This isn't really gonna work, so I'm kinda letting these ideas go. I will think of something else, when the time is there

The standoffs for the motherboard are mounted also. The dead motherboard makes it easy to fit everything.



Instead of the standoffs with a #6-32 thread that are used in standard cases, I used 10mm M4 standoffs. This also makes it easier to use hex bolts to mount the motherboard They aren't cut to size in this picture though.

 

The case will also house a watercooling system with a 240 Black Ice radiator. But to give the hard disks a little airflow also, I bought these fans second hand. Unfortunately one of them died during transport, and I'm still looking for another one. I would really like one made by antec, because these are way quieter than some other ones I've tested.



One will be used as intake, one as outtake. At this picture I made the grill. The devil is in the details, so I like to pay a lot of attention to those details. That's another reason this casemod takes so long





For the outtake, I had to cut away some of the excess plastic.



It's mounted to the top plate. The bolts needed to do this will be covered by the motherboard. At the bottom of the picture you can see the hole in the frame that will lead through the hot air. The grill is shown on the second picture below.





The case upside down, to cut the blowhole:



Now it's time for the radiator, and the two grills As I mentioned earlier I will use a Black Ice radiator, an Extreme one to be exact, and two papst 120mm fans:



The first grill needs a lot of 1mm aluminium sheets. I screwed up the first 24 pieces by drilling a hole at the wrong place. These were cut by hand, so I really was acting like:



These where bent at an 45 degree angle:



I also needed 48 spacers, so they were handcut also. Making those really takes a lot of time



Untill then it looked like this:



It still needed a mountingframe. So those pieces were cut:



The aluminium frame was welded. It didn't work great, but it's one piece now



Assembled, at this moment it looks like this:



The frame will be repaired with bondo, and then spraypainted black. The fins will be polished, so that will become an eye-catcher (I think ).

The second radiator grill (did I mention I don't really like those standard grills? ) will be on the inside. For the radiator, this piece of aluminium was bent by hitting it over and over again



And mounted:



The grill was designed using SolidWorks:



Cut and filed:



The plexi part. It still needed a lot of sanding at that moment. That's done already

 

A hole was cut for the radiator:



At the left side, there is some place left for the usb-hub. At the right two switches will be mounted:





Painted and mounted. A friend of mine will engrave the shiny aluminium piece, at least that's what he said 3 months ago when I sent him the piece



A piece of 1mm aluminium was cut and bent to hold the usb-hub in place:





And a hole was cut to let it be able to fit through. An other piece wil cover it all.



Now it's time for the waterpump, and all of the trouble that came with it. I bought it from Koradhil (I think you guys know him He also convinced me to post my log here. Ah well, he said :why not, just post it" ).



So I started cutting and bending:





And then it was welded It was done by a student, and he said it was nearly impossible to get it right, because of the thick oxide-layer that has formed in the time I had it lying around.



After feeling miserable for a few days, it was time for plan B. There was no plan B, so it took a while. I came up with this:



Designing in solidworks again:







And that is what I'm working on right now So more on that later, when I can show the pieces I made.

The last thing for now, is the motherboard-edge. I haven't seen it before, so I hope I'm the first It will be used to hide a lot of the cables coming from the motherboard, and there will be some leds underneath it to make the plexi glow.









At this moment I'm still working on this, so you will see more of it in future updates. Don't expect one every week, but I hope one every two weeks will be possible Thanks for reading all this, I hope you enjoyed it, and enjoy the future updates. I'm done posting for today, I'm tired of translating all this. Now it's time for comments

 

realy good start and it looks very nice !

 

nice! get more updates up

 

Nice to see you finally found your way to the Bit-Tech forums Good luck

 

Whoever welded that pump housing must not have known what the was doing; and possibly didn't have the shield gas flowing on his TIG welder. Pre-existing oxidation; total BS.

 

wow, very good work with the ALU!
i love the first grill for the RAD

 

Welcome to Bit-Tech!
I see some nice design here! What color of plexi are you using?

 

I like on this how you are using the tubing so all the bolts are hidden within the walls!

 

Thanks They all seem to like it so far

His teacher said he was the best in his class, so I guess the rest was even worse Too bad that work was destroyed.

And tnx to everyone else for the positive comments

 

Nice to see your log here, I hope it will be an extra support to keep on going. I really like the new pump housing!

 

Welcome to Bit-Tech!

I love the grill! and that Fan style amazing! wow I really like the case idea and your alu work, I wish I can do that, Well done brother. Keep it up.

 

That's some great alu work. Love the rad grill. Nifty way of putting in that USB hub and I like the sunken switches on the other side. Keep it up.

 

Very nice design for the DDC enclosure.

*subscribed*

 

looking good

*subscribed*

 

Just Amazing.

*subscribed*

 

I think the pump housing can still be saved. File the edges down clean and make them weld some scrap to the low spots. As long as they don't melt it down completely, it can be filled in.
You could also fill the holes with epoxy and paint it.


Of course, plan B looks nice too...

 

If I could save it, I should cut of the welded sideplate en grind the housing down. But because of all the heat it was all bent. I'll stick with plan B, also because it has 1/4" fittings

 

Love the look of the pump housing great mod my friend